Again, Matthias scores goals. He’s really good at it, but be afraid of using him for anything other than scoring goals. He hurts the team through bleeding shots against, and his impact on shot quality makes things even worse.

While Maurice deployed him like a third line, shut-down player when he dressed, Matthias performed more like an elite fourth line scorer.

Microstatistics provide a window into the actions that players take that create the results they do in the previous sections. They allow us to see why Matthias performs in the manner he does.

Matthias exited out of the zone quite often, with 82 per cent of his defensive puck touches being exits, but only 50 per cent of his exits were with control of the puck. This tendency to dump or clear out of the zone looks harmless at first, but only about 28 per cent of zone exits actually transition into the opposition’s defensive zone. This could be a central reason for Matthias’ tendency to bleed shots.

Matthias transitioned the puck into the offensive zone just like he exited out of the defensive zone: a lot of volume but not much efficiency. Only 45 per cent of Matthias’ entries were with possession, with the forward preferring to get the puck in deep and get on the forecheck. Only Chris Thorburn and Brandon Tanev tended to rely on chip-and-chase more often. He was actually fairly effective as such, with only Blake Wheeler and Joel Armia producing more shots per dump-in entry. That said, his poor performance in carries, and lack of them, limited his potential.

Matthias can transition the puck often, but his tendency to rely on chip plays ultimately hurts the team. He can forecheck and work the cycle, but struggles to generate set-up plays. He is a strong finisher, producing much of his shot volume from in tight or on the rush.

The Jets likely gave Matthias a two-year contract to stay expansion draft compliant.

He is, however, still a useful depth forward. Matthias will put the puck in the net, forechecks and cycles reasonably well, and can kill the odd penalty.

I’ve talked about this before, but I think the Jets deployed their bottom-six players non-optimally and inefficiently. I’ve been preaching the Jets run a skilled bottom-six where the third line is more like another second line, and the fourth line is more like a third line. Recently, Boucher talked something similar:

Matthias worked well with Armia and I’m sure he would do well with Marko Dano as well. Place either Andrew Copp or Adam Lowry on that line and you should have that new type of fourth line. My preference would be on Copp, since both Lowry and Armia have struggled to produce at 5-on-5.

This essentially means the Jets need to construct an all new third line to leap frog over what was their third line for the bulk of the season. The team would have two options in how to construct this new third line. They could piece together one with their next best skilled forwards, with some combination of Kyle Connor, Jack Roslovic, Nic Petan, Marko Dano, and potential free agents. They could also spread out their top-six talent of Mathieu Perreault, Mark Scheifele, Patrik Laine, Nikolaj Ehlers, Bryan Little, and Bryan Little so one or two of these players fill out the other top-nine line.

The latter option has started to become more common, as the playoffs have seen talents like Alex Ovechkin, Corey Perry, and Phil Kessel on the third line. It becomes a match up disaster but also allows the Jets to shelter players like Connor, Roslovic, and Petan with talent rather than their past usage, having them drown in odd roles with players like Chris Thorburn.